Day 11: Unboring
I remember when one morning I was thinking,
maybe I am BORING.
And why?
Because I spend so much of my time with my nose in
THE BIBLE.
Hmm.
But then again,
that's the very place where
GOD CHANGED MY LIFE.
I still remember the moment I saw with my own eyes
the word ANXIOUS in the Bible.
I was blown away.
Because if I had been given a middle name based on how I lived,
it could have been ANXIETY.
And there it was,
in
GOD'S WORD~
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to GOD. And the peace of GOD, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in CHRIST JESUS”
(Philippians 4:6–7).
Wait.
GOD CARES ABOUT MY ANXIETY?
But then I discovered HE went even further.
HE didn't merely care about it.
HE INVITED me to GIVE IT TO HIM~
“Cast all your ANXIETY on HIM because HE cares for you.”
(1 Peter 5:7).
Really think about that.
Has anyone ever come to you and said,
Give me ALL your ANXIETY.
Give me ALL your FEAR.
Give me ALL your DOUBT.
Give me everything that's weighing you down.
Who does that?
GOD DOES.
And suddenly I have to ask,
How could life with GOD possibly be BORING
when GOD is so completely UN~BORING?
This is the GOD who spoke and LIGHT appeared.
The GOD who parted THE RED SEA.
The GOD who brought down GOLIATH.
The GOD who shut LIONS' MOUTHS.
The GOD who walked ON WATER.
The GOD who called THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE.
And the GOD who looked at an ANXIOUS woman like me
and said,
"GIVE IT TO ME".
Oh, I had BORING all wrong.
CHALK TALK 101!
Take the chalk.
Write on the board:
I AM BORING BECAUSE I WOULD RATHER SPEND TIME WITH GOD.
Now,
ERASE IT.
Because it isn't merely
THE BOOK I can't get enough of.
It is the PERSON
the BOOK keeps revealing to me.
Because THE BIBLE isn't simply words about GOD.
It continually points meto
THE WORD.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with GOD, and the Word was GOD"(John 1:1).
And then~
"The WORD became flesh and made HIS dwelling among us"(John 1:14).
Oh,
JESUS IS THE WORD.
THE BIBLE is the written WORDthat reveals
THE LIVING WORD.
So all those hours with my nose buried in
THE WORD
were never merely about reading a book.
They were about KNOWING HIM.
Because JESUS said,
"These are the very Scriptures that testify about ME."(John 5:39).
And that explains why I kept coming back.
Why I absorbed
WORD
after WORD
after WORD.
Because somewhere along the way,
the WORD wasn't merely entering my mind.
HE WAS PIERCING MY HEART.
And slowly,
the anxiety that used to overwhelm my whole being
began encountering HIS PEACE.
Not because everythingaround me suddenly became peaceful.
Not because every fear disappeared overnight.
But because
JESUS was changing ME.
What once overwhelmed me was beginning
to be overwhelmedby HIM.
And
REAL CHANGE
began.
So when I questioned myself,
'Am I BORING because I spend too much time in THE WORD?'
GOD reminded me
I need HIS WORD,
because ultimately it was JESUS who I needed.
And without JESUS,
I have no REAL LIFE.
Oh, I can breathe.
I can move.
I can achieve.
I can exist.
But that apart from CHRIST,
I was spiritually DEAD~
"You were dead in your transgressions and sins..."(Ephesians 2:1).
But GOD,
"Because of HIS great love for us,
GOD, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with CHRIST..." (Ephesians 2:4–5).
There it is.
Without JESUS,
DEAD.
With JESUS,
ALIVE.
Because
I AM NOTHING WITHOUT HIM,
because
HE IS LIFE.
"When CHRIST, who is your life..."(Colossians 3:4)
Oh
CHRIST, WHO IS YOUR LIFE.
Maybe that is why I cannot get enough of
THE WORD.
Because every page keeps leading me back
to JESUS.
Meet BORING ME.
The woman who needs
GOD.
The woman who needs
HIS WORD.
The woman GOD GRACIOUSLY
loved back together when HE introduced meto
HIS SON.
The ONE who continually
AMAZES ME.
Because JESUS didn't only askfor my anxiety.
HE wanted me to bring HIM
my
FAILURES.
My
MISTAKES.
My
SIN.
My
FEARS.
My
IMPERFECTIONS.
My whole
IMPERFECT SELF.
And I was baffled.
Why would a
PERFECT GOD
want anything to do with an
IMPERFECT ME?
And once again,
GOD answered me through HIS WORD.
“How? you ask. In CHRIST. GOD put the wrong on HIM
who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with GOD”
(2 Corinthians 5:21 MSG).
How?
JESUS.
I didn't have to make myself
PERFECT before coming to HIM.
I couldn't.
I didn't have to
FIX MYSELF.
I couldn't.
I needed JESUS.
And HE took what I could never fix
and gave me what I could never earn. LIFE.
So maybe I am okay with being called BORING.
Because what may look BORINGfrom the outside has become ABUNDANT LIFE on the inside.
"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full"(John 10:10).
Now that's not BORING.
That is JESUS.
And oh how HE makes ALL things UN~BORING!
I finally discovered
WHERE LIFE IS FOUND.
What once entertained me doesn't satisfy me the way it once did.
What once consumed me doesn't have the same hold on me.
Because once you begin experiencing
MORE OF JESUS,
you discover something.
The CREATOR of EVERYTHING could never be BORING.
HE teaches me.
HE surprises me.
HE corrects me.
HE comforts me.
HE forgives me.
HE restores me.
HE transforms me.
HE makes me NEW.
And every time I open HIS WORD,
the written WORD keeps introducing me
more deeply to
THE LIVING WORD.
JESUS.
Do you want to be BORING with me?
Pick up the chalk.
Then put it down.
Because
CHALK TALK 101
isn't about us writing our own story at all.
It's about handing
THE CHALK to JESUS
and doing the very thing
HE has been asking us to do all along:
“FOLLOW ME.”
And believe me,
HE IS ANYTHING BUT BORING.
(Listen to “Follow Me” below)
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